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mentioned as the full cost. And it's because Kucinich is not within 3% of a possible win. What this means is that neither a minor candidate, nor the voters and general public, can get even the minimal recount required by law, without having $80,000 to spend. That may seem like chump change to Bushites and Clintonites, but to the poor it is a lot of money, and prohibitively expensive.
Audits (automatic recounts) of these corporate "trade secret" vote counts are 1% in the best of states--miserably inadequate for a "trade secret" system. Election integrity experts say 5% to 10% is the minimum needed to detect fraud. In Venezuela, they hand-count a whopping 55%, and THEY use an OPEN SOURCE code system, not "trade secret" code.
The audit is ZERO percent in the touchscreen states--about a third of the national vote in 2004.
In the optiscan states, the paper ballot is dropped into a box and never seen again--except for the 1% audit. In other words, 99% of the ballots are never counted. The machine turns the "vote" into highly manipulable electrons, and "sends" it to the central tabulators, which are also run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY code. (The same thing is done with Absentee and other paper ballots, by the way--scanned right into the rigged electronics, in most cases.) If you have $80,000--or, as was required by Gov. Richardson in NM in 2004, one million dollars--you can get a meager 3% recount of selected precincts (that's the general rule). There is no circumstance--except by order of a court--in which you can get any significant percentage of the ballots actually counted. And these 3% recounts do, indeed, open up another "can of worms": which ballots to count? what is the chain of custody of those ballots from election day onward? what is the chain of custody of the computer memory cards and other records? in what ways can election officials fiddle the "recount" to protect their careers (their wasting of multi-millions of taxpayer dollars on these crapass machines) or to protect fraud? etc.
The only way to insure that your voted has been counted is to be a millionaire or billionaire, who can afford lots of lawyers, and it might help also to have your own corporate news monopoly.
Our election system is outrageously non-transparent and riggable.
This sorry state of affairs did not happen overnight, but as the result of decades of effort by our corporate rulers to gain control of our elections, for instance by making it so expensive (TV advertising, for instance) that you have to have a million dollars to even begin thinking of running for a House seat. This makes it possible to control who runs. And we should be flattered as to the reason: We, the American people are potentially the most progressive force on earth--for world peace and for saving the planet. We have to be controlled--or we might start dismantling these war profiteers and global corporate predators who are oppressing us and everybody else. It has been a long term project of these "dark lords"--since the 1960s--to destroy our sovereignty as a people, and our power and example as a largely progressive people, who reacted against unjust war (Vietnam) and brought down two presidents over it (LBJ, Nixon), as well as exposing and stopping some of the worst horrors of U.S. policy in Latin America; who initiated an amazing social revolution (black civil rights and equality, women's rights, gay rights, Native American rights, etc.), as well as the environmental movement. Our next projects would have been the unjust and unnecessary and ungodly military budget (providing a constant temptation to wars of choice), and corporate rule. The Reaganite counter-revolution stopped us. (Do you know that Reagan signed off on the slaughter of 200,000 Mayan villagers in Guatemala--totally covered up by our government and by the increasingly monopolistic and fascist corporate press? Amazing! I just found out about the magnitude of this genocide, and Reagan's complicity.)
However, there was a particularly intense effort, during the 2002 to 2004 period, to fast-track these election theft machines, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations (mostly Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia), all over the country, probably to shove the Iraq War down our throats (56% of the American people opposed the war from the beginning (Feb 03/NYT; other polls 54-55%), and 70% oppose it now), and to prevent the rich from having to pay for it. The e-voting bill (HAVA) was passed by the Anthrax Congress in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution, Oct 02 (and is closely related to it, in my opinion). E-voting run on 'TRADE SECRET' code, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations, was enthusiastically supported by the bulk of the Democrats in Congress and by the party leadership, and still is. No skepticism was expressed. No warning issued to voters.
Are our Democratic leaders nuts? No, they are corrupt--and some are fearful. The only Democrat in the country who objected (that I know of)--CA Sec of State Kevin Shelley (who tried to sue Diebold and get hold of its source code, just prior to the 2004 election)--was driven from office on entirely bogus corruption charges soon afterward, with the help of the CA Democratic Party leadership--as a lesson to others, I think. We tend to forget that almost all significant developments in our country these days are heavily influenced by Bushite spying, blackmail and dirty tricks. It's too difficult a reality to face.
We must--we really must--get rid of these election theft machines, as a first and essential step back toward democracy. If a NH recount helps do that, great. But do remember the stakes involved, from the point of view of our political establishment, both D and R, which will do everything in its power to keep the machines. Why should there be ANY uncertainty about the vote? Why, indeed? Keep asking that--and maybe we'll get our country back some day.
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